In the end, it was me.

I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t not do Christmas the way we’ve always done.

The kids, oddly, would have been fine.

When we told them we’d be cutting back from 18 presents to two — not so much because of our own economic status, but because we wanted to focus on what’s important and because we wanted to honor those who have less –they were surprisingly acquiescent.

“I don’t need that much stuff anyway, Mom,” said the eldest and the trend-setter for the rest of the crew.

It sounded so good on paper. Instead of starting my shopping in August, I would spend a couple of easy days picking out for each of my three children a few clothing items and maybe a few books. I would not worry about each child having a spread from Santa and 17 gifts under the tree, an electro-techno gadget of some kind, six stocking stuffers, a game each, a DVD, a Yo-Yo, Silly Putty and a Slinky.

On Christmas Day, instead of the usual four, we would spend half an hour opening gifts. The rest of the day would be spent engaged in family activities, playing the one new game somebody got. Maybe even later we would go to a community center to serve food.

Somewhere around Dec. 18 then, I lost it.

I reverted to old behavior, which I learned from my own mother: Mama couldn’t afford to buy me and my three sisters much stuff the rest of the year. Ah, but she used Christmas as an excuse to lavish.

Presents wouldn’t even be that big or that expensive. But they would be plentiful and evenly divided. No child would get more than the other. But each would get a lot, 15 or 20 under the tree. As each gift was opened, the rest of the family would look on, celebrating the giver and the receiver. We went to Midnight Mass and visited Grandma and sang carols and ate pralines and chocolates. But just as all those things were Christmas, so was opening presents.

Christmas presents was ritual.

And tradition.

And in the end, I couldn’t give it up.

In the end, I rushed around getting calendars for each kid and techno gidgets. I got the right number of books and the fleece hoodies. I got 6.5 stocking stuffers and a Slinky for each child. I got lots and lots of tiny presents, mostly things they needed like socks and ink pens, and yes, one big luxury for each child — an iHome for my daughter, a digital camera and Rock Band for my sons. It didn’t matter the size or the expense of the presents, though, I found joy watching ever so happily as each candy cane was unwrapped, each pair of socks tried on.

I used the opportunity to lavish my family, who just like my family of origin, doesn’t get much the rest of the year. They don’t get a lot. But they give: My 20-year-old son started United Way on his college campus last year. This past spring, all five of us gave up our spring break and traveled on a bus for 20 hours to New Orleans, where we worked on a school that had been destroyed by Katrina. We give on a regular basis to family members less fortunate than us.

I don’t say this for praise, but more, I suppose, out of guilt – and an attempt at understanding the fullness of our humanity at Christmas time. Sometimes we give. And sometime we get. On Christmastime, in particular, we in this culture have a tradition of giving presents. To others. And to ourselves. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

- Debra-Lynn

P.S. Photo above is my 11-year-old son opening a snow globe.

This year we took two.

One was during one of those rare moments when we were dressed up and ready go to Emily’s Cmas high school choir concert. The second was just after putting up and decorating the Cmas tree when we we up to our elbows in sweat and pine needles. In both pictures, Steve is inadvertently in the shadows:

This is no way a subliminal reflection of his status.

I ended up liking the second set of pics because we look more like ourselves when we’re covered in dirt. I am, by the way, wearing a Tshirt that says “Where Y’ Hat,” a takeoff on the common greeting in New Orleans, “Where yat?” Benjie is, yes, wearing a T shirt with a stain on the right shoulder. Emily is wearing her newly earned high school letter jacket and a crown, which is, absolutely, a reflection of her status as a 16-year-old girl, and hence, an entitled princess.

During a year when so many things are so up in the air for so many people — but there is global hope, too — we extend our wish for personal peace, that we all may seek joy in the ones they love.

P.S. For those who are local (northern Ohio local), look for a collection of real photos at Starbucks, Kent, for about two months starting mid-January. Those will be mine (DL) in my first ever, photographer debut….

Merry Christmas,

from Steve, Debra-Lynn, Emily, Benjie and Chris

A friend once told me that every now and then she wakes up in the night, startled.

She thinks she’s heard one of her children crying.

And then she wakes more fully. And she remembers she’s in her 70s, and her children haven’t lived at home for years.

“Enjoy them while they’re young,” she said.

I recall a similar admonition from another woman who walked with a cane and looked to be in her 80s, who sat next to me and my squirming little ones as we waited for our church’s Christmas pageant one year.

The woman knelt to pray, and when she lifted her face, there were tears.

She told me she was remembering the year when all three of her children were in the pageant at the same time.

“Enjoy them while they’re still with you,” she whispered to me even as I struggled to keep my babies still.

“Enjoy” them while they’re young.

“Enjoy” them while they’re with you.

You’ll have regrets later if you don’t “enjoy” them now, the wistful grandmothers tell me.

There are times, of course, when I did, when I do, focus solely on my children.

I remember, in particular, the very early years with my youngest child, who is 11 now.

Every morning after everybody else left for school and work, time would still as he and I sat together for an undetermined amount of time on the couch in the living room.

Sometimes we would just talk.

“I love you bigger than all the trees, Mommy,” Benjie would say.

“I love you bigger than the sun,” I would say back.

“I love you bigger than this whole house,” he said, his eyes huge with the possibility.

“I love you more than all the snowflakes in the world.”

“I love you bigger than a giant, the whole neighborhood and Clifford!”

Other times we watched the birds out the big picture window. Or we played a game.

But then I would remember the dishes in the sink or the laundry in the dryer. And I would be called back, while my mind raced on to what’s for dinner, who’s driving to Cub Scouts that night and whether there are clean socks for school the next day.

Motherhood is like this.

And I imagine if I choose to see the imbalance between busy-ness and stillness, I’ll feel only guilty now and remorseful later that I didn’t spend enough time “enjoying.”

Or I can choose to reframe my understanding.

I can choose to embrace the teachings of the great Eastern philosophers, who when deliberating the path to a rich life, don’t so much use the word, “enjoy,” but “live.” “Live consciously in the moment,” these Easterners advocate to us scattered Westerners. Even dish-washing can embody conscious living, says Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and author of “The Miracle of Mindfulness.”

“Am I washing the dishes mindfully?” the dishwasher should ask herself. “Or am I rushing through with little thought of what I’m doing? Am I taking the opportunity to feel the warm, soapy water against my hands? Or am I hurrying through the pots and pans so I can move on to the next thing?”

So, I suppose, these same questions, this same philosophy, can be applied to motherhood.

Sure, it’s important that I let the housework go every now and then and focus squarely on my children — even as, at 20, 16 and 11, they don’t always look like they want to focus on me.

But given the realities of family life, it may be just as important that I see the whole of our family experience as opportunities for conscious living.

I imagine no matter what I do now I’ll cry my own tears when my children are gone.

I look at them as the poignancy of Christmas Eve and the Day itself approaches, as we slow down the whirrings of the Christmas machine and begin to move into the special experiences of our Christmas traditions together.

I look into their eyes. I watch them experience the excitement of Christmas, even as they are 20, 16 and 11, and I know this may be the last Christmas we are all living in this house together.

My only hope as they leave, one by one, is that my tears are tears of longing, that they are not tears of regret, that it will be enough to know I was privileged to live very close to three little sunflowers as they lifted their faces to the sun.

Merry Christmas to all.

- Debra-Lynn

To say that my husband and I gently debate clashing Christmas traditions every year is like saying the Grinch was kind of rude.

Take the annual Christmas photo.

I say it’s not our children people really want to see in the picture we enclose with the Christmas photo card; it’s me and my husband, and how much we’ve grayed, wrinkled and sagged during the past year.

He says children are the meaning of Christmas. If we get in the picture, we look narcissistic.

There’s the Christmas tree.

I say we should spend the day after Thanksgiving rearranging several pieces of heavy furniture so as to accommodate as large tree for as long possible so we can enjoy an entire season with every ornament weʼve ever collected, including the paper snowflakes our 20-year-old made when he was 3.

He wants a small tree as late in the season as possible so that a) it won’t dry out and set the house on fire; b) we can’t fit every ornament on it, nor the 200 lights he is responsible for stringing; c)when it falls over because it’s cockeyed in the tree stand, it won’t kill anybody.

There is the timing of Christmas shopping.

Every year, I do mine early, telling him if he needs something for his secretaries in his office while I’m out to let me know by Dec. 1.

Every year, around 4 p.m. on Dec. 24th, he comes asking for “one of your little homemade somethings” for the secretaries.

The way I see it, marriage is like a see saw. Sometimes, I’m the one at the top. Sometimes, he is.

Occasionally, when our weight is evenly distributed, we level out — although this is rare during the holiday season, when childhood tradition, not to mention cultural and gender differences, compels one of us to watch every minute of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and the other to pop in and out making cynical remarks about what the cast of Grease has to do with the Pilgrims.

Southern born and bred, I want cold ham and biscuits.

A dyed-in-the-wool Midwesterner, he wants hot turkey and mashed potatoes.

I like candles in the windows. He likes strings of lights in the bushes.

I want to take hundreds of pictures on Christmas morning. He wants to live in the stillness of the morning without a flash going off in his face every time he eats a chocolate bell.

We have, after 20 Christmases together, begun to agree on a thing or two.

He used to lobby to get the kids dressed and out to midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, while I would rather take a beating with a plywood board covered in metal studs.

Last year, we discovered a beautiful service at 7:30 p.m. Voila.

He gets the solemnity of a Christmas Eve service.

I don’t have to deal with exhausted children and getting started on Santa at 2 a.m.

This year, we even managed to compromise on the Christmas photo.

We all got in the picture.

Fresh from trimming the tree, I didn’t brush anybody’s hair or don any Burtʼs Bees or even a nice shirt. The youngest is wearing a shirt with a stain on the right shoulder.

Not a lick of narcissism in sight.

- Debra-Lynn

Each year, I choose a day before Christmas to spend an entire day shopping. I call in favors for babysitting, my husband works a short day, and I’m a free woman. Note: that’s the only thing free about this day. With a credit card clutched tightly in my hand, I back my minivan out of my driveway and I’m off!

I begin at my favorite store. It’s an exclusive, upscale little establishment. You may have heard of it. It’s called Target.

One of the pre-shopping things I do is to organize my coupons. In my home filing cabinet, I have a folder labeled “Coupons.” I shove any in there that I come across or that arrive in the mail. Also, I go online beforehand and Google the store’s name and “printable coupon” and I’ll often find more that way.

For instance, I had a $10 off a $100 purchase at Target. I had a feeling that spending $100 was not going to be a problem. When I arrived, I headed right to electronics because that seems to be what it’s all about for my older kids. I picked up some games and new controllers. A memory card and a digital camera. Then I headed over to toys and picked up a few traditional games. Except they’re not quite so traditional anymore. Electronic Life, Pictionary Man, and Electronic Guess Who. Better throw some batteries into that cart, too.

On to clothes. I picked up underwear and socks for all, and new jammies for Christmas Eve. That’s basically what I bought. Honest. There were a few other small items thrown in (Play Doh, maze books, gum) but that’s it. My total was $678.52. Ouch. It’s the darn video games. I curse those people at Nintendo!

Side note here. My daughter’s DS Lite got rained on and wouldn’t work after that. Go figure. Well, I called Nintendo and they sent me a refurbished one for $75 (better than $129 for new). The Nintendo people were very efficient and polite. So, I remove my curse.

Wounded by the amount I’d just spent, I moved on. I stopped at the Aurora Farms Outlet Mall and by showing my AAA card at the office, I received a coupon book. Ten dollars off of any $50 purchase at Aeropostale caught my eye. I found some great sales ($1.99 for sweatshirts!) and just barely reached that $50-mark. That’s better.

I stopped at Nine West and used another coupon in the book to buy a pair of boots ( UGG knockoffs) before stopping in at Claires. I had a $10 off any $20 purchase so picked up earrings and stocking stuffers. One more stop at Limited Too (is it obvious yet that I just have daughters?) where I scoped the clearance rack and picked up a Webkinz for the top of each girl’s stocking.

So, total for outlet was under $200. I grabbed a quick lunch to go through my receipts (I was still having trouble with that Target one) and regroup. I checked my list to see what my afternoon plan of attack should be.

I headed to Barnes and Noble. I chose a 1,000 piece puzzle for our family to work on the week before Christmas and picked up a pile of books for each child. I then attempted to choose a CD for each of my older girls and lastly picked out some DVDs for the entire family. My husband and I have limited the TV choices for our preteens down to next to nothing (the shows are all so obnoxious) so we decided to get a few “oldies” to give them more choices. After much consideration, I selected The Best of the Cosby Show and a season of The Brady Bunch. I threw in Care Bear’s Big Wish for my 5-year-old and forced myself to walk out the door. Price tag for bookstore: $180 (after 10% off coupon).

I made a few more stops for small items and then went home. I’m finding, as my kids get older I spend more money but have less gifts under my tree. They get plenty but not nearly as much as many of their friends. It’s difficult to find the right balance.

We try to keep the focus of Christmas on the religious meaning and not get sucked into the craziness. But it’s hard. When I’m Christmas shopping I enter some weird twilight zone where I justify buying things that I hadn’t planned on purchasing. So, I always end up returning a few items after my shopping spree. When I’m back home, I’m again able to refocus on what Christmas is really all about.

But I do love my annual shopping day!

-Kay

Over the years, I have experimented with letting go of the various “shoulds” and “have-tos” of Christmas.

There was year I tried to cut back on baking and making, when I decided not to spend hours in the kitchen making 300 of my signature Southern pecan pralines , half of which never manage to harden into candy but end up sliding off the counter onto the floor.

Only thing, when the mailman came around, I felt bad that I had nothing to give besides a weak, “Can I help you with that 35-pound package?”

There was the Christmas when I decided to forego the Christmas photo for the annual Christmas card. This decision came, mind you, the year after the Christmas tree fell on the baby while the photo was in progress.

Only thing, no Christmas cards means I slip out of the card-exchange loop: Don’t send any Christmas cards. Don’t get any Christmas cards the following year.

There were the various and many de-stressing shopping experiments, to include the Christmas I bought everything by Sept. 1; the Christmas when I bought nothing by Dec. 1; and the Christmas when I shopped online for almost everything.

The problem with early buying, of course, is that kids change their minds. The problem with late buying includes not being able to find a single, solitary winter hat with those little tassels hanging down, not to mention standing in line with really mean people. The problem with online buying is that shipping and handling costs as much as the item, sometimes more. Some day, I’d like to find out how much it really costs to send a two-ounce CD in the mail.

My conclusion after all these experiments: Managing Christmas is a job, added to whatever other jobs you already have. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, if you are the reigning Christmas Manager in your house, and most women are, there will be stress at Christmas.

There are, however, things you can do to ease the intermittent agony that creeps Grinch-like into the joy:

1. Strive to be reasoned and measured. This goes for everything from the amount of presents you buy to the number of pralines that make it to your mouth while you are making them. It makes infinitely more sense to say you will only eat a certain number of pralines, say a pound daily, and stop at that.

2. Don’t rub in your status as manager of all things Christmas in your house. “Just how many people is it that you shop for?” I one year asked the husband of a friend who was sweating as he peered into the jewelry counter where I was also shopping. “My wife,” he said. “Hm,” I said. “I shop for several cousins, aunts and uncles, my three children, my husband, his family, several secretaries and teachers, and I make and package 12 boxes of pralines to send to out-of-towners,” I said. He dropped his head and left the store.

3. Expect to be dissed and ignored by store clerks, especially as the clerks become younger and apparently, wiser. At one store, where a cashier tried to sell me one of those irritating warranties for the video product, I tried to engage him in a conversation about the days when you didn’t have to buy a warranty, when warranties actually came with the purchase. He just looked at me. “Merry Christmas, lady,” he said.

4. Expect a mess. “I have given up on trying to scrape the glitter/glue combo and a multitude of paint globs off of my table and sweep beads up off of the floor, at least until it’s all done,” says SnappyMom.

5. Look for concrete ways to keep the enchantment alive. Drink Bailey’s. Walk up to somebody who looks like they could use it, and put a $5 bill in their hand. If you know your husband will not remember to buy stocking stuffers for you, buy Oil of Olay and calligraphy markers and stuff your own.

6. Never speak your theory about Santa, that his sleigh makes perfect landings on snowy roofs because the runners have special Velcro on the bottom. As long as nobody says it out loud, everyone will still believe it’s magic.

7. Finally: Do not wear clogs while making pralines. You will get sugar in your shoes.

- Debra-Lynn

Every year when it’s time to start thinking about the children’s Christmas pageant at their church, I cringe.

I think of the sweet elements, of course, all those precious little shepherds and angels processing to the altar with the Holy Family,their tiny voices lifted in song.

I think of the dedicated parents who manage to get all those wired kids dressed and crammed into church on Christmas Eve.

But then thoughts turn to the Christmas pageant of 1988.

I was excited that year because my husband and I were going home on the train for the first time in years to spend Christmas with my mothers and sisters in New Orleans.

I was especially excited because we would be bringing a baby with us, our first baby, the first grandchild in my family in 10 years.

At 3 months old, he was the perfect age and disposition for traveling.

He was also perfect for something else apparently, as two weeks before we were scheduled to leave, the priest at our church, along with the pageant director and two beaming members of the pageant committee, approached us after church and with great pomp and ceremony and announced:

“We want your baby to be Jesus this year.”

Ouch. Yipes. Whaaat??

Our jaws dropped. Our hearts sank. We felt selfish. We felt sinful. We felt downright ungrateful, if not sacrilegious, choosing the Big Easy over Jesus.

But the train tickets were paid for. My mother was standing on her head waiting to get her hands on her new grandbaby.

And so 1988 became the year our son could have been Jesus.

It’s a reality I’ve had to face every Christmas Eve. I see the
procession of miniature shepherds and the angels in their glittering wings start down the aisle. And then I shut my eyes tight as I wait to see who gets to be Him.

For years, I fantasized we’d get another chance, like the year 1992 when we had a baby girl, in June. But then some other family went and had a baby boy in November. And I knew even if the church elders felt sorry for us,they weren’t going to choose a boisterous 6-month-old girl over an immobile newborn baby boy guaranteed not to rise up out of the manger and start cooing at the crowd.

In April 1997, we were blessed with another strapping opportunity, and the right gender this time. But I knew then, too; even if he wasn’t going to be too old at Christmas, he weighed 9 pounds at birth and 20 pounds by October. There wouldn’t be any swaddling clothes big enough to fit this child.

No, this is the cross I have to bear.

Some other mother’s child will get the extra boost of divine
inspiration at an early age.

Some other child will be so inspired to become a priest or a missionary, a Peace Corps volunteer or just a really nice person.

Some other child will carry with him throughout his life the knowledge that the year he was born, he got to play Jesus in the Christmas pageant.

There’s just one other lament: If he had been Jesus, doesn’t that mean I would have been Mary?

- Debra-Lynn

Photo is from Knox Presbyterian Church, Ontario

I’m so excited. I can’t wipe the smile off my face.

If you have taken this journey with me, you’re well aware it’s a “doozy!” ( original post) ( follow up post) ( second follow up post)

I opened my kid’s folder and found the PTA meeting notes. My heart raced as I scanned the page looking for something about the communication issue that has been looming since the initial meeting.

It was right there in black and white. “Communication: The PTA is forming a committee to resolve the communication issues brought up at the meeting. The committee will address ideas including using the website more effectively.” YIPPEE.

The whole process has been a roller coaster of emotions – complete with feelings of annoyance and camaraderie and everything in between! The annoyance stemmed from the initial defensive reactions at the first meeting. The camaraderie came from the other parents struggling to make things better for their children as well.

I’m thrilled the PTA officials listened to the heartfelt plea and are taking some steps to improve things. I’m thrilled that there are other parents out there that want to make a difference. I’m thrilled that I contributed to process improvement.

As we approach Christmas, I feel like I already received the most wonderful presents – faith, hope and love. Faith that the PTA is pursuing resolutions to an important issue. Love for our children and their welfare. Hope that improvements can be made in a system that needed improvement.

How great is that!

- Lisa

This year we picked out our Christmas tree on a bitterly cold winter morning. The van thermostat read 22 degrees when we pulled into the “cut your own Christmas tree farm” in the middle of nowhere (actually, Mantua, OH). By the time we had scouted the field of potential picks and evaluated the merits of each, we were all in severe pain. Our noses and toes felt like they were going to freeze off. It was perfect…just as it should be.

We lived in Southern California for many years and while there I just couldn’t get used to picking out our Christmas tree. We used to go to this place right next to a busy road. Imagine cars going “whoosh, whoosh, whoosh” as they drove by at 70 miles per hour. The Christmas tree place tried to cover up the traffic noise with piped in holiday music, but that really just added to the cheesiness. We’d often be wearing shorts and certainly never anything warmer than a sweatshirt. A Mexican gentleman who didn’t speak English sold the precut trees. As we walked on the scorched, dry ground we’d see little lizards darting around. The kids would try to catch one while my husband and I picked a tree and tried to figure out how much money Cincuenta is in Spanish. Eventually, we’d hand over mucho, mucho, dinero just to be done with the whole anti-Bing Crosby, winter wonderland, sugar plum experience.

If you grew up in the Southwest, this probably feels perfectly normal and festive but for my husband and I who were transplanted from the NE, it felt like a page out of Dante’s Inferno. Slight exaggeration, but you have to understand that I love Christmas. The traditional kind.

When we moved to Ohio 4 years ago, my husband and I were thrilled to be able to experience Christmas as we had growing up. We really wanted our children to enjoy some of the same joys that we did as children. Building snowmen, sledding, tromping through a field hunting for the perfect tree, and losing feeling in our extremities.

At the Christmas tree farm we found a tree we could all agree upon and snapped a picture of the kids standing in front of it to share on Photoworks. The kids were doing their best to look happy but I’d have to say the smiles turned out more like grimaces. Then, my husband lay down in the snow to cut it down. It was one of those moments when I’m glad I’m the female. We all helped drag it back to our van where he tossed it on top and secured it while we girls attempted to regain the use of our frozen fingers inside of the toasty van. Again, glad I’m female.

When we arrived home, the kids anxiously waited (translate into moaned and groaned) while their father put up our tree and strung the lights. Then, the kids and I draped the beaded garland and placed the ornaments on the tree. I love my ornaments. If my house caught on fire, my ornaments would be near the top of my list of things to save. Many are old. My mother has always bought each of her children an ornament each year so some of mine date back to the 1960’s. As grandchildren have been born, she has added them to the list of ornament recipients each year, so my children look for theirs when decorating. In their minds, those dating back to the 1990’s are ancient. My favorite ornaments would have to be the ones made for “Mommy” by my children. My kids mock their own young attempts at art, but I notice they look for them each year as we decorate.

I loved the whole Christmas tree experience this year, even the extreme cold. I think it’s unifying for our family. There’s a reason those hardy people who live in frigid climates are so tight knit. It’s a bonding experience to get frostbite together. Plus, when we got home we warmed up with hot chocolate and cookies. That alone made it all worth it.

When our tree was all decorated, we turned out all of the lights except for those on the tree and were awed by the serene, beauty of our tree. There’s really nothing else like it. As I gazed at my children in the glow of the lights, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of peace and thankfulness. No wonder I love Christmas so much. What other time during the year has the same sense of magic and wonder?

Peace be with you.

-Kay

On an overcast wintry Saturday recently, I pulled on a pair of jeans and a cozy sweater. I threw a suitcase, a bunch of CDs and a map in the gassed-up minivan.

And I hit the road.

I had no idea where I was going.

No matter.

I was running away.

OK, so I’m being dramatic. So I wasn’t really “running away” — not in the Britney Spears/Paris Hilton sense, which typically involves a) adolescent tendencies; b) a vow never to return; and c) cops.

My family knew I was going and, perhaps more importantly, that I was returning.

All my friends and family knew I’d been threatening a getaway for a long time – though not the family kind when you still have to remember the sunscreen and the asthma medicine and cook all the meals and be the mother even though you’re on vacation.

Nor was it going to be like one of those “ momomcations,” popularized by groups like the Girls Getaway Group. These women meticulously plan two-to-three-day excursions with other mothers as they escape from “screaming infants, frustrating adolescents and defiant teenagers,” according to one travel writer.

The most important piece of my particular plan is that there would be no plan.

Turning my CD player way up and my cell phone way down, I would simply get on my favorite road north and drive to the Lake Erie shoreline 50 miles away from our northeast Ohio Cape Cod on the cul-de-sac.

I wouldn’t stop until I landed at the front door of some yet-to-be-named bed and breakfast in some yet-to-be-named little town where the proprietor cares only enough to feed me homemade blueberry muffins in the morning.

All spontaneous. All impulsive. All just what a 24-7 responsible/overscheduled/overcommitted mother needs. (See this article.)

There was only one thing that I might should have planned for: winter on the Great Lakes. A tumbledown lakeside village that is a Pee-wee’s Playhouse of ice cream shops and hot dog stands in the summer is a Norman Bates Pscyho Town in the off-season.

“Help?” I said, phoning my Google-friendly sister two hours and 100 miles into my trip.

“There’s a B and B in a town called Painesville. You’re a few miles from Painesville.”

“I don’t especially like that name, but OK.”

I drove to Painesville as dusk descended, only to find a full sign on the B and B, and I refused to stay at a sterile hotel even if there was one.

“Go west to Sandusky.

“I don’t want to go to Sandusky. I think I already went to Sandusky,” I said.

“But Sandusky has B and Bs.”

“Sandusky’s too far away,” I said, not yet knowing just how far far is.

“So let’s go east. Here! Erie, Pennsylvania! How far are you from Erie, Pennsylvania?” she said.

“I don’t know. Wait! Here’s a sign. ‘Cleveland, 47 miles, Erie, Pa., 50 miles.’ If I go to Cleveland, I’m an hour away from home. If I go to Erie, I’m two hours away from home.”

“You can’t go that close to home! Google says there are lots of B and Bs in Erie. I’ll stay on the phone with you while you drive to Erie.”

I drove on to Erie like my shaman sister said, only to find that some major event had taken up every room within 20 miles of Erie, which the 1-800- accommodations guy told me after I got there.

“So drive the 100 miles back to Cleveland, and I’ll stay on the phone with you again,”my sister said.

My sister and I laughed hysterically as we traveled together, and yes, you shouldn’t talk and drive, but I think she kept me awake, and I know her companionship kept this leg of my “getaway” from being a total wash.

“I’m getting pretty close to Cleveland,”I said finally.

“Good because there are lots of B and Bs there. Here’s one with a dog dressed in a little plaid suit on the bed.”

“I am not going to a B and B with a dog on the bed. In fact, you know what? This doesn’t make sense. I’m an hour from home. Why should I spend $150 on a room when I’m 45 minutes from home?”

Seven hours and 268 miles later, I turned the car south.

“Pretend I’m not here,” I said, as I walked into the familiar Cape Cod on the cul-de-sac and went to bed.

Ah, but I was not to be defeated. The next day, I got up and left again – this time, with a prospective reservation in hand, which I canceled; I took one look at the To Kill a Mockingbird town where it was located and kept driving, not stopping until six hours and 219 miles later when I found a quiet resort on a peninsula I hardly knew existed.

It was not a B and B. But there were muffins waiting. Winter rates were one-third the summer rates. I had a Jacuzzi in my room next to a window overlooking Lake Erie. I had a king-sized bed with a down comforter.

But the destination was no longer the thing.

It apparently never really was.

A friend once told me that you can no longer be spontaneous once you become a mother.

Ha.

- Debra-Lynn